'You're absolutely sure about this hospital? I can go google it right now on my laptop.'
'I speak the truth.'
'We'll see about that. Where does this guy typically hang out when he's not in the hospital?'
'Mountains.'
'Which mountains? You got some pretty serious peaks in Pakistan, right? Like, that's where K2 is, correct? Second-tallest mountain in the world.'
'No. K2 is on the Chinese border with Pakistan. He's mostly in the mountains near Chitral. North-West Frontier Province. Malakand District. Where we fought Winston Churchill in 1885.'
'Any particular mountain?'
'Yes.'
'Does it have a name?'
'Wazizabad.'
'Waz-iz-a-bad. Is that it?'
'Yes.'
Stoke thrust the pad and pencil into his hands. 'Draw me a map. Just rough. Put a black X where this Wazizabad mountain is, got that?'
The imam started drawing. He was actually a pretty good little artist, once he got into it. Had a horizon line, perspective, the whole deal.
Harry Brock stuck his head out the door.
'Hey, Stoke, you should come in here.'
'I'm busy.'
'I got through to the director at Langley, delivered the news. Now Alex Hawke is on the radio, patched through out here by the CIA station chief Miami. Says it's urgent.'
'Hawke?' Stoke couldn't believe his ears.
'You heard me.'
'Ozzie, you sit tight, buddy. I'll be right back. This is a fascinating conversation, so don't take this as an insult. Bossman on the phone, you know how that goes. Harry, will you babysit this badboy while I'm gone?'
'HEY, BOSS,' STOKE SAID, PUTTING on the headphones and pushing the send button on the transmitter. 'You're back! Man, it is great to hear your voice! You sound good.'
'I am indeed, Stoke, but not surprisingly I need your help.'
'Say the word. Where are you?'
'Cannons to the right, cannons to the left. I seem to be stuck in the middle. I'm in London now, but headed out to Pakistan. Like, yesterday. Urgent business requires my presence. Islamabad.'
'What can I do?'
'I want you to be ready to go when I go. Start now. I'm going to need you over there. Things could get spicy fast. C wants me to ensure that all the Pakistani nukes are locked down. As you know, the local Pak government is not fond of us snooping around in their backyard. We'll be going in under the radar, needless to say.'
'Boss, I was just there six months ago. Doing a small job for Brock, organizing transfers of F-34 aviation fuel to some supersecret U.S. airbase. F-34 is the stuff those Predator missile drones burn. Anyway, I got to know the town and some of the locals pretty well. I know one thing: don't trust a word the Pakistani Army generals tell you. Half of them are Taliban sympathizers. And the other half are on the fence.'
'It's going to be tricky, all right. Your knowledge of the locals is a huge bonus, Stoke. Is Brock with you on that boat?'
'Yes, he is.'
'You know how I feel about Harry. Always ready to give a helping hand to a man on a ledge a little higher up.'
'I agree completely. We're in the same boat, so to speak.'
'Sometimes I think he has the moral compass of a piece of driftwood. He could be useful to us, however. Good in a firefight. Do you agree? Your call.'
'Yeah, we could use him all right. At least when he tells you he's got your back, he doesn't plan to stick a knife in it.'
'Right. Tell him I'll be in touch with you guys the minute I've got a departure date scheduled. Be ready to roll at a moment's notice. Anything interesting going on aboard that fishing boat?'
'Yeah. We're interrogating a guy I met in prison. He's full of information and so was his laptop, some of it possibly true. Lot of chatter about the bombing at Heathrow, the attack on MI5 headquarters, et cetera. You ever heard of somebody named Smith?'
There was a long silence at Hawke's end of the line.
'Smith? Yes. I have definitely heard of him. What have you got?'
'Our guy says Smith's in Afghanistan right now. Aiming to kill the heir to the throne of England. Harry, the son of Prince Charles. You believe that?'
'I do now. I was just informed of an attempt on Prince Harry's life this morning. It failed. The sniper was killed and an accomplice escaped. Thanks to you, I now know who the accomplice was. Our friend Mr. Smith. And it makes sense of the fact that the shooter used the highly classified long-range British sniper rifle left at the scene.'
'Sounds to me like you got a big hole in your bucket, boss, kinda leaks you're talking about.'
'We certainly do. This intel is invaluable, Stoke, thank you. This Smith character must have connections at the highest levels of Britain's government. And he is deeply involved with Sword of Allah. One of our immediate tasks is to run him down.'
'Sword of Allah took down Jackson Memorial Hospital here in Miami. It's the Sword that's blowing up school buses all over America. Another thing we found? About twenty radicalized homegrowns from a southside mosque in Chicago were all set to take down New Trier High School with AK-47s and suicide bomb belts. Almost five thousand kids in that school could have died. You believe that? FBI rounded up the killers just two days before they would have done it too.'
'Appalling. We're dealing with the world's first, highly organized, megaterror group, Stoke. Recruiting and training in prisons. Forming allegiances with the IRA and the Communist governments in Cuba and Venezuela. Possibly the North Koreans, and God knows who else. Our job is to find and cut off the head so the body will die.'
'I have more on them, boss. My songbird says the top dog in the entire Sword organization is somebody named Abu al-Rashad. Code-named Scimitar in all the encrypted Internet communications. I even think I might know where he is at the moment. In the Quaid-e-Azam hospital in Islamabad, sick or wounded, I don't know which.'
'He was right about the assassination attempt on Prince Harry in Afghanistan. You've got him scared enough to start telling the truth. Good work. See what else you can get out of him. Whatever it takes.'
'Will do.'
'Please tell me, God forbid, you're not waterboarding this guy, Stoke. Politically incorrect in Washington, you know, even when the fate of the whole goddamn planet is at stake.'
'Me? Waterboard? C'mon, boss, you know I'd never stoop that low.'
'Stoke, I'll call you back in exactly one hour. I need to convey every word you just said to the directors of both MI5 and MI6. Stay near that radio.'
Click.
Then Stoke heard Harry Brock cursing and screaming in pain.
WHEN STOKE STEPPED BACK OUT into the blazing sun, he saw Harry Brock clutching his gut, blood spurting between his fingers and pooling on the deck.
'He's got a knife!' Harry said, his eyes on the little guy, backing away. 'Fucker tried to kill me.'
'You okay?' Stoke asked him.
'Not really.'
'Looks like a flesh wound.'
'Hurts like a bitch though, trust me.'
'Harry. Pay attention. You get that map he drew?'
'Yeah, I got it, that's when he knifed me, handing it over.'
